Premaitha Health PLC (AIM: NIPT), a leading international molecular diagnostics group focused on prenatal testing, announces regulatory clearance for the completion of the acquisition of Yourgene Bioscience Co., Ltd (“Yourgene”).

The acquisition of Yourgene, announced on 21 December 2016, has now received regulatory clearance as required by Taiwanese law. Legal completion of the acquisition is expected to take place on 2 March 2017, upon admission to AIM of 76,054,570 new ordinary shares in the Company (the “Acquisition Shares”). Once the Acquisition Shares have been admitted, the Company will have in issue 321,218,279 ordinary shares of 0.1 pence.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Dr Bill Chang and Mr Alan Chang will be appointed as Directors of the Company.

Yourgene is a significant Asian non-invasive prenatal testing (“NIPT”) bioinformatics specialist based in Taiwan and its integration will provide Premaitha with increased access to Asia, the world’s fastest growing NIPT market, as well as opportunities for cross-selling.

Since the announcement of the acquisition, Yourgene has continued to win new customers for its in-house and lab-based NIPT solutions. These include an Indonesian partner who will offer the first in-country NIPT service based on the Yourgene solution, and a laboratory in India which has purchased next-generation sequencing equipment ready to launch a Yourgene-based NIPT service in Q2.

Adam Reynolds, Chairman of Premaitha, commented: “We are delighted to have completed the acquisition of Yourgene. The combination of Yourgene and Premaitha will create a truly global platform from which we are able to offer safe, non-invasive prenatal screening tests to pregnant women. The board is also looking forward to working with the enlarged team, in particular to raise awareness of NIPT in Asia Pacific, which we believe will be a key growth market for Premaitha. The recent wins in Indonesia and India will also add sizeable target populations to the Company’s activities.”

Premaitha is an international molecular diagnostics group which uses the latest advances in DNA analysis technology to develop safer, faster and regulatory approved genetic screening tests. The Group’s primary focus is on non-invasive prenatal tests (NIPT) for pregnant women - an emerging, multi-billion dollar global market.

Premaitha’s IONA® test was launched in 2015 as the first CE-IVD NIPT test in Europe. It enables laboratories and healthcare practitioners to offer a complete CE-marked NIPT system in-house. The IONA® test is performed on a maternal blood sample – which contains traces of fetal DNA – and estimates the risk of a fetus being affected with Down’s syndrome or other genetic conditions.

Unlike existing prenatal screening methods, due to its high level of accuracy, the IONA® test can significantly reduce the number of women subjected to unnecessary invasive follow up diagnostic procedures, such as amniocentesis, which are costly, resource intensive and carry a risk of miscarriage.

In December 2016, Premaitha announced the acquisition of Yourgene Bioscience, a specialist next generation sequencing and bioinformatics company based in Taiwan, with its own NIPT screening test that operates on the same Thermo Fisher next-generation sequencing platform as Premaitha’s IONA® test. Yourgene brings significant benefits to the Group through expanded market access in Asia – the world's fastest growing NIPT market – as well as opportunities for cross-selling and the ability to jointly develop expanded test content both within NIPT and beyond.

Premaitha is headquartered in Manchester, England, with Yourgene offices in Taipei and Singapore. Its shares trade on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange (AIM: NIPT). For further information, please visit www.premaitha.com. Follow us on twitter @PremaithaHealth.